


woojin's inferno

by whimsycott



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Humor, M/M, Modern Magic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, awkward strangers to friends to lovers, being retired for a moment!, check ch.1 notes for info, its very undertale-like and i was influenced by it so..., oh yeah lots of swearing like. wow, or what i think is humor lol, set in Literally Actual Hell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-09-01 13:56:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16766482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsycott/pseuds/whimsycott
Summary: How to get accidentally get sent to Hell prematurely and make it out alive**Results may vary





	1. in hell with a floridian

**Author's Note:**

> 7-15-19 update!  
> yknow i really enjoy this idea and building up this story but... ive had none of the same enthusiasm recently for writing it rip...  
> i think its due in part to writing so sporadically and being my first multichapter, so im abit in over my head oops  
> so until im more constant on writing fics and planning them good ol inferno will be in retirement akshsb
> 
> i'm not abandoning her!! im hoping to come back. but i really love this story ive created and i want to make sure itll be the best it can be, but also that i wont burn out so hard that i dont work on it, like i have.  
> hope you understand! in the mean time ill work on some other ideas <3
> 
> *note: panic attacks are mentioned near the end, no one has one its more in a joking manner, but if this upsets you please watch out!

Woojin knows for sure he has woken up in worse ways, worse places, and with certainly worse headaches. So maybe if his morning was shit, it wasn't the shittest so far.

He hangs onto that dim hope as he groans awake, sitting up and opening his eyes for what awaits him that day. It's dark, a swirling cloud of smoke blocking his surroundings, ungodly heat pressing on him, choking on the air as he breathes it in, clawing down his throat and chest like its got a mind of his own.

Oh no, this is _definitely_ one of his worst days.

He stands up quickly, covering his mouth with his shirt and tries to stumble his way out of the smoke. It goes about as well as he figured it would. He has to steady himself from falling in potholes or weak segments of the brittle stone ground, one that he can barely place. It's not concrete or raw stone, it's yellow, orange, red, dark and hot colors that crunches loudly under his feet as he stumbles around. Picking a bit out from his shoe, it looks like…

_Petrified bones?_

The smoke around him suddenly clears as the hot, burning air whips wildly, Woojin glancing up with growing fear as something big, scaled, and all matters of unholy beats the air with giant wings. Like a cobra or ancient dragons, one giant bloodshot eye of a colossus flicks over him as it flies up from further below. It pushes the smoke out of the air enough to prevent it being a complete smokescreen, Woojin having a sinking and freezing realization in his gut as he looks around.

“What the _fuck!_ ” His curse rings out around the cavern, hearing it echo back to him. The smoke swallows him up again, Woojin just standing agape, hand fisted in his shirt as he stares blankly at the coiling silhouette of the colossal flying serpent.

_How in the fucking world do you wake up in Hell?_

Woojin thinks about it, argues with himself, goes through the entire cycle of acceptance and then another lap in his head for good measure and still is at a complete lost for words. He's in Hell. There's absolutely no fucking way around it, _no fucking way this isn't it._ He sits on the ground and looks at the odd stone again, rubbing his hand over it to feel the weird warping texture. He can peer down holes in what seems like the broken cliff side and see only smoke and flames beneath him.

When a bead of sweat drips off his nose, he watches it fall for only a second before being evaporated away in how hellishly stuffy and hot the chamber is.

“Hey!” Woojin snaps his neck up so hard at the distant voice he legitimately pulls something within it, curling into his aching neck for a moment. The smoke clears again as the giant flying serpent is still flying around, seemingly interested in them as it slowly moves its head towards Woojin. Through the clearing smoke through, he can see another human figure burst through, looking around. “F-Fear not! I'll, uh,” he trails off for a moment, looking sheepish and muttering to himself as he looks for Woojin.

Woojin legitimately thinks some angel has come to help him in the form as another, equally distressed human. He doesn't waste a second to get up and run towards him, waving and yelling back as he exits the thick cover of smoke.

“Thank God!” The stranger calls, meeting Woojin halfway and grabbing onto his arm. “Are you ok?” He looks over Woojin with an odd gaze, looking at his back first before scanning the rest of him over. “Shit, what's going on?”

“I could ask you the fucking same!” Woojin squeaks out, coughing as the thick smoke scrapes his throat again. The stranger seems fine, coughing into his palm slightly before pulling his shirt up to follow Woojin along. If either of them had anything to say more, probably an endless string of questions and curses, it gets swallowed up in the deep roar that settles on them.

The giant serpentine beast is glaring at them head on now, Woojin and the other able to see it's head as a weird amalgam of a snakes, thin and smooth, with a canine snout growling at them, giant fangs bared and dripping spit into the endless void it flies above. When it barks and howls at them, the entire cavern seems to shake with it, dust and fire falling from the ceiling and onto them in thick layers.

“Fuck, fuck!” The stranger grabs Woojin's hand, pulling him along as they start to run into the smoke again. Woojin barely keeps pace, coughing and sputtering as he keeps inhaling the dirty and miasmic air. The ground beneath them shakes as the serpent beast lunges at them, easily breaking the brittle ground apart, jaw wide open and bearing down on them. “Hang on!”

Woojin is barely taking in the whole scene, hearing shot to shit and seeing his life flash quickly by his eyes as a forked tongue and teeth the literal size of him barrel out of the smoke at them. The stranger pushes Woojin aside and over into a wall at what seems to be the last second, leaving the scene unfolding before him covered in a billowing and fast moving wave of smoke. He hears a wailing whimper, feels it in how the ground around him seems to vibrate to the high pitched noise, watching the smoke clear enough as the serpentine demon is turning back in the air, slithering through it and back down into the deep pit of fire.

The silence that quickly settles over him again is chilling, the ringing of his ear intense, so much so that he doesn't even hear his own voice as he calls out again for the human he had seen for only seconds. Everything seems still again in the cavern as the smoke rolls back in, Woojin only just seeing one dust covered body lying on the stone before fading into the darkness. He's over by him in seconds, shaking and dusting him off, rolling him over onto his back.

The fucking dude doesn't even have a scratch on him. Woojin can't help but to flick his forehead out of pure fear and adrenaline rushing off of him.

“Ow!” The stranger whines at him, pushing off Woojin and sitting a noticeable distance away. “Is that anyway to treat someone who saved your life, huh?”

“You shouldn't have given me a heart attack like that! I meet the one other human in Hell and you throw yourself at…” Woojin's at a loss for words of what just tried to eat them whole. He makes a fizzling angry noise to the depth below them, the stranger giving him a strange look that he maybe deserves for being vague. “Nevermind, just- you are one dumb motherfucker, you know that?”

“Wow, dude, you're _really_ making me not regret saving you now,” the stranger laughs, a scoffing cough as he slowly sits up. Woojin gets a slightly better look at his face now, but it wasn't like he had a solid one in the first place. He looks young, a softened square of a jaw and almond shaped eyes that squint back at him. He notices the littlest speck of something, natural or dirt under his eye and plump lips to boot to it all. “Anyways, the names, uh… would you stop looking at me so weirdly?”

He snaps his finger in front of Woojin's face, bringing his mind back to a working level and out of hyper analyzing every pore of the kids face. Woojin feels like his brain is maybe starting to suffer from how much smoke his floating around his lungs, because all he feels that he can focus on is that little mark under his eye.

“How the hell are you alive?" Woojin asks, his fumigated brain still doing well enough to understand something is not clicking. "I figured something like _that_ should've, I don't know, maimed you?"

"I..." The stranger looks lost for words, equally confused and looking at his hands. "I don't know, man. I just kinda, kinda hit fight or flight, and decided to punch it?" Woojin gives him an incredulous, deadpanning stare.

"And you would just survive that?"

"I don't know, man!" When the stranger yells back, his voice is whiny and lilting as he tries to piece together his thoughts. "It's, it's like a shark! Yeah, a fuckin' shark, you just," he fumbles with his hands, a weird punching motion to the air that looks like he tried to stop himself midway. "Punch, in the, uh, snout..."

There's a lengthy beat between them. Woojin swears he must've heard wrong at one point, as if this conversation wasn't originally about repelling a towering serpentine beast with just a single fucking punch.

"I-I'm from Florida," the stranger wheezes out suddenly, and Woojin can't help but to just nod sagely at that. It makes sense, in some weird way that he's not willing to argue out further.

And if anything, besides sweating like he never has before, feeling tired from the rapid-fire amount of revelations and near death he's had already, and having someone like a Floridian by his side in eternal damnation, Woojin is… _okay_ with Hell so far. “Did I cut you off earlier? Sorry, let's get back to that. I'm Woojin.”

“Name's Hyunjin.” He said with a little smirk at Woojin, starting to stand up and completely dust himself off. “So, welcome to Hell, I guess?”

“I mean,” Woojin exhales, coughing in the silence between them. “Where else could we be?” When he starts standing up again, he takes caution as to not completely plummet through the thin brittle floor they stand on.

“Right you are.” Hyunjin smiles, before grabbing Woojin's wrist and gently leading them towards the more stable walls. “What I'm more curious about though is how we died. I-I can't remember anything, personally,” He adds the last part abit quickly, busying himself in feeling against the walls and testing the strength of the little outcrops of rocks here and there.

Woojin stays quiet for a long time as he thinks about his last waking thoughts. He can see Hyunjin get increasingly more and more worried as the minutes stack on. “Okay, if it's embarrassing that's fine, I get it-”

“Holy shit.” Woojin pauses as his memories click together again, looking Hyunjin in the eyes. “I'm not even dead! What the fuck!”

“Huh?” Hyunjin blinks incredulously at him, flinching slightly as the rock he was climbing up on breaks under his feet. “Hold up, how are you sure? There's no way…?”

“No, I know I'm not dead, I was fucking studying for my finals...” Woojin trails off as he runs his mind ragged for foggy memories. He knows he was sitting on his bed, unable to even see the blankets beneath him from how much material he had laid out. “Damn, watch me be dead from a stress induced heart attack or something. God, this sucks! I can't even tell how I died, I spent the last good six hours of my life studying, and now I'm in Hell? Is this a joke?”

“A pretty bad one, I'll be honest.” When Woojin stays quiet, Hyunjin glances back with a concerned look. “Too soon?”

“Kinda.” Woojin fiddles with his hands, tapping his pockets on his clothes. It was the same outfit he had worn on his last living day, except rightly dusted and pulled to all hell. When he reaches his back pocket, he sighs in defeat. “Not even my phone made it?”

“Your phone- Man, we're in Hell and you're worried about your phone? Millennial.” Woojin points a glare at Hyunjin, having to follow after him as he disappears further into the smog.

“I'm just trying to distract myself before I have a fucking grand mal panic attack about being in Hell. Give or take, we're about 10 minutes away from it happening, so keep that on the schedule. I think it'll fit just snuggly in between black-out rock climbing and eternal damnation-”

“Do you ramble when you're anxious?” Hyunjin bites out, holding onto a stable looking rock lodged in the wall. “Because you're rambling hard man, and I'd _really_ like if you could just maybe not feed into how paranoid I am too.” Woojin levels Hyunjin with a stare, and sees how the other tries to avoid his direct gaze. He's more occupied with climbing up the outcrops and divots on the wall, anyways.

“You're doing pretty good at repressing it, then.” Hyunjin huffs, going further up the wall as Woojin keeps standing around.

“Yeah, all this sweat? I don't remember when it stopped being from the heat or my pure stress. And given how that much stress has ruined my general state of being, I can actually laugh at that now.” Woojin huffs a bit too, a harsh exhale through his nose, just shaking his head at the other man. “Come on, climb up now. If you really are going lose it in a few minutes, I'd like to atleast have you somewhere safe.”

“So we're climbing up a wall, for what reason?”

“There's some higher ground up here you can sit on, so let's just get there and recoup first, yeah?” Despite most of Hyunjin's body being shrouded in the darkness around them, Woojin can see him extend one hand to help him up. When he clasps onto his wrist, Woojin can't help but to feel a bit more motivated as they climb side by side.

Jury's still out on them being an effective team, but he's not willing to hate the one other human in Hell at the given time and circumstances.


	2. meeting a friend (?)

In Woojin's mind, after having all the time in the world to think as he crawls up steep cliffs, or walks side by side with Hyunjin, Hell isn't such a terrible place after all.

Well, it's shit. He's still in literal Hell. But he can't write everything off just yet. It's hard to worry about studying and relationships when it all seems so far away from him. And like Hyunjin said, if he closes his eyes and tunes out the occasional roars and screams of demons, it's almost like he's on a hike.

A really,  _ really _ hot and dangerous hike. He's almost sure Hyunjin's never been on a hike if he thinks this even close to one.

He's willing to ignore it, despite how Hyunjin continues to give him some odd vibes whenever he says something particularly weird. He's not going to find any other human in Hell, he knows that, so he's glad he has Hyunjin to fill up the lonely silence as he guides them through the higher plateaus of Hell. The smoke isn't so dense and dark that Woojin can barely see his hands, but now a dark red color that surrounds them with only a little more visibility.

“Old man, are you listening or what?” Hyunjin's voice suddenly breaks through his thoughts, the little chunk of petrified rock he throws at Woojin's head grazing over his temple. His voice is coming from above him, Woojin realizing he's climbed another wall as he tosses more pebbles down at him. “I've been trying to get your attention for like five minutes!”

“Sorry, just spacing out a bit,” is all Woojin says as he starts finding a foothold in the wall. When he looks up and starts climbing, he hears Hyunjin make a strangled gasp when a large rock falls right on Woojin's face. Despite how light it is, it still leaves a burning and stinging pain on his nose as it slides off. “Ow! What the fuck! I'm climbing already, you asshole!”

“I'm sorry! It broke off from the wall!” When Woojin pulls himself up to the ledge, Hyunjin has the good sense to be worried and to gently try and check his face. All he needs is a quick once over before huffing. “Oh, shut up, it's just some dust. It's not like I broke your nose or anything.”

“It still hurt!” Woojin dusts off his face and clothes, shoving Hyunjin without any actual force, but still grinning as he stumbles back a few steps. “Why are we even climbing so much anyways? I don't want you to drop a boulder on me next time.”

“Shut up,” Hyunjin grins as he guides Woojin to follows him again, walking up a slight incline near another steep wall of the cavern. “I'm just trying to find a way out. Like- You've read Inferno, right?”

“What?” Woojin gives Hyunjin a confused look as he seems to be thinking.

“Dante's Inferno, yeah?”

“I mean, I've heard of it?” Woojin was getting that odd vibe from Hyunjin again. He really seems to be partial to weird examples, he guesses. “You mean people actually read that?

“Uh, yes? Anyways, Hell is  _ supposedly _ shaped like a funnel, so I'm thinking the only way out is up.” Hyunjin kept on his way without any pause.

Woojin gives it a moment of confused thought. It clicks slightly, before he just shakes his head again. “There's no way I'm going to owe my life to some old ass book written in Dark Ages.”

“It was written in 1320 actually, so that's not Dark Ages my friend. Besides, what else do you have to trust?” Hyunjin just gives him a shit eating, know-it-all grin that leaves Woojin  _ so confused. _

_ Why the fuck does he know this? _

“I always heard the Floridian stereotype was being weird as fuck, but dude, seriously?” Hyunjin gives him a confused look, before seeming to understand and give a hearty laugh back.

“What can I say? I just know weird facts about history.”

“You also like to act weird and stand in the way of giant demons- I'm still not over that! How are you even alive?”

“Didn't I say it's like a shark?” Hyunjin looks up and down another wall, beginning to try and climb up again. “And I've been in here longer than you, I know what it's weak to.” Woojin squints. He squints so hard he feels a headache forming already as he tries to wrap his head about it.

“That thing’s teeth are literally the size of you and you just  _ punch it? _ ” Hyunjin pauses as he climbs up, nearly losing his grip as part of the wall crumbles away under his grip. “You're a real special one, Hyunjin.”

“The quickest punch in the west,” He hums, face obscured in the red fog that beats down on them. “Seriously, it's… it's as blind as a bat once it charges. And it hates being touched, so uh, one good punch sends it running.” Woojin squints again up into his shapeless shadow of the fog. There Hyunjin goes acting off again. “Come on, aren't you just happy to be alive? You should thank me a bit more, man.”

“Yeah, I don't think I'm going to let you and your probably massive ego get any bigger,” Woojin grumbles as he climbs up, Hyunjin helping him up over a lip of the wall. “Are we done climbing yet though? I swear to God if we're going to be climbing for the rest of eternity I'm throwing myself down there right now.”

“Don't be dramatic! It's just a little hike!” Hyunjin elbows Woojin a bit, but is already quickly guiding then away from the ledge and up more steep ground. “I swear, we should be hitting a change of scenery any moment now.” Hyunjin kept on walking, Woojin wiping away some sweat before following, despite how tired his body was beginning to feel.

  
  


Walking up the steep ground, it was clear that they were entering a new sort of zone. The stone they walked on actually looked as such, a warm colored and brittle clay type substance instead of bones massed together. The fog was lifting quickly the higher they rose, Woojin laughing a bit as he peeked his head out from a layer of steam that covered the lower levels. The air was clear, enough that Woojin could see the vast blanket of fog stretching across the entire pit of the cavern like a lake. The walls were sparse, besides a subtle shift from the clay layer and into a deeper black, almost obsidian like material, still high above them.

“It's kinda cool, huh?” Hyunjin's voice from behind him was calm and playful, squatting down from a higher shelf that Woojin still had yet to climb up. He wiped his forehead, shaking his hand off. “We're not even to the next layer yet, if I remember.”

“What's next then?” Woojin asked, pulling himself up besides Hyunjin to sit and watch the fog cover. It rippled at moments, but nothing ever seemed to surface from the fog, despite the echoing cries of demons.

“Well, if we're still placing all hope into Inferno, the next layer would be a swamp… or was it the boiling blood lakes?” Woojin sunk into himself, laying back as he let out a tired groan.

“Here I was hoping we'd be able to hit something nice. That's what I get for expecting anything else from Hell, I guess.”

“Wait, that was the bottom right?” Hyunjin cuts over him, no even bothering to look back at him in his plight. “It should've been ice then? And then we'd reach fiery bullshit later on… Ugh, I'm all turned around!”

“And that's why we don't listen to sketch-ass ancient books when we're lost in eternal damnation.” Hyunjin finally turns back, only as he's getting up from the ledge and trying to pull Woojin up as well to flat ground.

“Shut up. Not like you had any other plan then to be a big downer about everything.” Woojin stands up after Hyunjin tugs on his arms for awhile, mostly to annoy him then to actually pick him up off the ground.

“I guess.” Woojin dusts himself off, to much pain actually as the brittle clay seems to stick hard and fast onto his clothes, smearing over his arms and hands. “What are we even doing next? More climbing?”

“Absolutely!” Hyunjin spins around on his heel, looking over the plateau they've reached. When he points across the cavern, Woojin can actually follow and see what he points at. It's another steep climb, but Woojin sees a small path at the top that continuously goes upwards as it curls around the edge of the cavern. “That should bring us high up enough for now. We'll just have to make our own way up if that one doesn't work.” Woojin nods, giving a resigned sigh.

“I guess that's all we can do right now.”

“Race you to the top?”

“ _ No. _ ” Despite the hard clap on the shoulder, Hyunjin is already off and running, turning back to check on Woojin. It takes some puppy dog eyes from the other and loud begging until Woojin feels alive enough to lightly jog after him.

Emphasis on light. Woojin would barely break a sweat at his sluggish pace, but since he's already melting and practically drenched, it's not like the difference matters much. Hyunjin seems happy though, backpedaling a bit to be close to chat his ear off, but also to continuously stay in the lead.

Woojin finds he really doesn't care that much about it.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Fuck, I'm seriously going to throw up.” Woojin groans out, halfway up the steep and narrow staircase. Really, the further they climb higher, the more dizzy and sick Woojin feels. So far, Hell really is just as tormenting as he thought.

“What, already?” Hyunjin's voice laughs down at him from where he's a few steps further up. He's effortlessly climbing these stairs, could probably jog them for fun. He still waits patiently for Woojin though, pushing him onwards.

“The hell do you mean  _ already? _ ”

“We've been climbing for like, ten minutes. Or are you and your old man bones already that worn out?”

“No, idiot, it's because I'm so on edge.” Woojin inches forward a bit, getting closer to Hyunjin from where he's squatting on the staircase. “Don't tell me your not terrified by the idea of possibly slipping and falling to your death?”

“Eh, I'm trying not to consider it.” He holds his hand out after a moment, which Woojin quickly takes. “We're almost there man, don't give out on me yet!”

“I'm not,” Woojin groans as Hyunjin easily pulls him along. The cliffs Woojin woke up on are far away below him, the blanket of smoke thick. When he looks up, he sees a similarly dark pit, this time by the dark material of the sinkhole they're entering, obsidian-like stone lining this small tunnel they're wandering up through.

At least the air, though still warm, isn't burning any longer.

Woojin feels just slightly more compelled to keep trudging up as Hyunjin holds tightly on his wrist. Even if his hand slipped into Hyunjin's if he suddenly tripped, he'd go right back to his death grip of the wrist. It's happened a lot, considering the stairs feel slick now, smooth and polished as Woojin walks along them.

“I hate that I'm about to say this,” Woojin murmurs. Hyunjin still looks back with an interested smirk at him. “But are we there yet?” Sure enough, his smile drops into a frown as quick as it came, but Hyunjin still laughs after a moment.

“Man, we have to be. I'm starting to get tired of walking too.”

“Fuckin’ finally. We're doing intense cardio in Hell, of all places, and you've barely broken a sweat.”

“Don't complain that you aren't as athletic as me,” Hyunjin hums,  _ finally _ stopping on the staircase as they reach a tiny bit of flat land. They're still in the dark, but as Woojin acclimates, he starts to see some details.

The flat plateau is  _ really _ small, Woojin comes to find. It's enough that barely he and Hyunjin can stand on it without being in their personal bubbles. Something about it, as he stands up and looks around with Hyunjin, tells him someone carved this themselves. He doesn't want to call it shitty work, but...

It's shitty work. He can feel sharp points of the stone sticking up and jabbing through his shoes. It's sharp little ridges of rough stone, as if a rake or an indiscriminate pickaxe job was taken to it. Soon enough though, Hyunjin is elbowing him, bringing his gaze upwards.

It's hard to see in the dark, but Woojin can squint hard enough to make sense of whatever he's seeing. A thick fog cloud consumes the rest of the sinkhole as it goes upwards, Woojin watching as it ripples slightly. Infact, the air above him seems to ripple like a cloth in wind, a weird distortion that Woojin can't help but to investigate. He reaches up, one finger not barely even touching it before it ripples violently, shocking his finger.

“Ow!” Woojin waves his hand around. Hyunjin seems concerned for all of a second.

“And here I thought you'd be better at not touching weird things,” is all he says, looking up again. “You'd do it sooner then later though. I hope you're ready to pass through it!”

“What even is _ it? _ ” Woojin has stopped waving his hand about, really the pain subsided as soon as he pulled away. “Please tell me it's not going to shock me the whole way through.”

“Hey, it might!” Hyunjin kicks around the wallax before finding another flat foothold to stand up on, He flinches lightly when his head touches the invisible field, but soon enough eases back in. “It's a magic barrier though. I'm pretty confident it's to keep two levels separated, so we finally made it!” Hyunjin finds the next foothold, walking up further and finally shrouded in the fog. “Oh, that's weird. It's kinda chilly up here?”

That interests Woojin enough. Cold? After practically melting? It's enough for him to follow after Hyunjin. Even when the thin barrier snaps over his skin, he doesn't mind it too much.

“Jesus-!” Woojin nearly falls off the foothold as he reaches the fog, if not for Hyunjin suddenly reaching out to grab him. He's gasping and suddenly shivering, feeling as if he was dunked into ice. Hell, he probably just was. “It's fucking freezing up here! What the fuck!”

“Hey, it's not too bad after sweating to death!” Hyunjin's voice is still light, not yet phased by the sub-zero air. “This has to be the next layer though, I'm sure.”

“What else could it be,” Woojin grits out as his clothes that cling tightly to him suddenly freeze in the cold air, instantly making him shiver violently. As he blindly climbs after Hyunjin in the fog, he can feel a change in the walls texture. It's getting smoother, footholds not so narrow and shallow. Soon enough, his head pokes out from the fog with a little puff, Hyunjin smiling at him as he makes it up.

“Hey, it's not so bad up here!” Hyunjin's arm emerges from the fog to gesture at the vastly different surroundings around them. The sinkhole is lined now in giant quartz and ice crystals, crossing over each other and creating narrow ways for them to continue further up. He swears there's even snow caps on parts of the crystals, a flake or two reaching them down at the bottom. “Much prettier, I think.”

“It's f-fucking cold,” Woojin can barely keep his teeth from chattering. He never thought he'd miss that heat of the cavern below them ever again, or even so soon. He might just freeze to death if Hyunjin keeps trying to sightsee, though. “How are we gonna even k-keep going up?”

“Just keep snaking through,” Hyunjin says with a smile, his breath leaving him in great big puffs. Woojin's does the same, but in much shorter bursts. “Here, I'll go first. Just yell if you need help, okay?”

Woojin nods along, teeth beginning to clatter together far too hard to make a comprehensible sentence. Seriously, he can feel the ice patches forming in his head,  _ how is Hyunjin still unphased? _

Woojin slowly follows Hyunjin up, about three crystals up, until he has to take a moment to warm up. Just on time actually, as some weird feeling is washing over him. It's like the barrier not too far below, it's as if the air in front of him is wavering. It doesn't take long for it to stop, but just as it does, a deep tremor begins to shake the walls of the sinkhole. It starts slowly, the crystals shaking ever so slightly, until Woojin is suddenly thrown unceremoniously onto his ass as the entire cavern violently rumbles.

He half expected to see the walls move like waves, he's seen it happen before in cities with bad earthquakes. But the cavern just seems to shake furiously, not rolling along and possibly crushing him between two giant crystals. Woojin's barely grateful. Mostly because he's in Hell, damnit, he'd want to go out to a kick-ass demon.

“Woojin!” He snaps back to focus as Hyunjin yells in his ear. He flinches, yelling back at him. “Dude, are you good? You're just sitting there and shaking.” Woojin indeed realizes how cold he is as Hyunjin grabs his arm, feeling how stable he is in comparison. “You didn't get hurt in the quake though, right?”

“N-nah,” he manages to get out. He grinds his teeth together to get them to stop shivering, standing up again, but it does little to help. “I'm c-cold as  _ shhh _ it, though.”

“I can see that,” Hyunjin says, grabbing Woojin's arm and leading him down slightly. “Let's head back for a moment, we…”

Hyunjin trails off as another rumble comes, not as deep as the earlier one but enough that the crystals react more violently. He holds Woojin close as the crystals shift, starting from above them with little chunks raining down. Woojin can follow his gaze, enough to actually see the crystals moving. Sinking back into the walls in fact, doing so at such a great speed that he doesn't have the time to react as the crystal they sit on retracts back as well. He's nearly thrown from how fast it was, but Hyunjin has a death grip on his clothes.

Woojin really doesn't have time to react to  _ anything _ going on around him, he realizes. He heard a voice further up the sinkhole that's new to him, but looking up to a blur falling onto him makes him forget the idea in favor of protecting himself. That idea doesn't last much long either as Hyunjin loses his grip on him as the heavy weight falls on him, sending him tumbling down the now open sinkhole and back into the fog that's settled at the bottom. He's fallen halfway through that odd, translucent barrier, his legs hanging out halfway into the hot air again, the little shocks on his legs traveling through him. There's a tight grip on his arm, this hand much, much larger than Hyunjin's. He swears the person's nails are digging into his skin through his jacket as well.

Woojin's dizzy and frozen all over again, eyes rolling around his head. Trying to comprehend what in the  _ fuck _ just happened, along with the weird temperature differences he's feeling, he's quite out of it right now. He can't see much as he's currently in the middle of the settling fog, but he can hear Hyunjin and that other voice from above, squabbling with each other.

“Holy- Woojin!” That's Hyunjin alright, yelling out at him. “Fuck dude, you could've killed him!”

“Hey, I'm holding onto him!” And there's the stranger, waving Woojin around as if Hyunjin could see him through the dense fog. “He's perfectly fine, right buddy?”

Woojin has to take a moment to come back to clarity to realize they're talking to him. He just gives some warbled sound, still not entirely sure where he is. His head doesn't hurt, but damn, does it feel like he has a concussion.

“For the love of God,” Hyunjin grumbles, Woojin watching as his hand begins to swat through the fog. “Can you pull him up already before you dislocate his shoulder or some shit?”

“Oh- Oh, fuck, yeah.” The stranger sounds reprimanded at least, but struggles to actually lift Woojin's deadweight up. “Seriously, I didn't see you guys there when I fell, I'm sorry,” He grunts as he begins to work his hand further down Woojin's arm, trying to get a stable grip on his body. The stranger freezes for a moment, chuckling in the awkward silence. “That wasn't very  _ ice _ of me to fall on you, huh?”

Woojin can practically hear the expression on Hyunjin's face. It's evident that it's not very pretty as the stranger fumbles his words.

“Like nice? Ice? Get it? Wait, maybe it should just be nice still. N- _ ice?” _

“Jesus  _ fffu _ cking Christ, pull me up already!” Woojin finally snaps up at his mysterious savior, teeth still chattering as he freezes partly. He thinks Hyunjin said something along the same lines at the same time, but his voice is still somewhat too far away to actually hear. The stranger finally grabs onto the collar of his shirt though, and lifts him up easily.

He practically drops Woojin again in surprise when the human yells after seeing him. It's because this stranger is  _ absolutely not fucking human. _ Woojin suddenly realizes why his nails seemed to dig through his clothes, it's because he's got claws, and it's a miracle they haven't ripped his collar to shreds yet. He lifts up Woojin easily enough to sit him on one of the quartz next to Hyunjin, giving Woojin the chance to actually look over him better.

He's really not sure what he expected a demon to look like in the first place, but all he knows is that the one in front of him is certainly less terrifying than the ones below. He'd almost pass for a human, if there weren't so many blatantly demon things about him. Hell, where does he even begin with this stranger?

His one hand, not currently covered in some hybrid of demon mitten-gloves, has the vaguely animalistic claws that dig into the quartz. It's enough that he can actually pull himself up and over the now makeshift seats they have, listening as the claws scrape over the mineral. He wears a long heavy coat, very human attire that clashes with his slightly pointed ears and the literal antlers that arch out from his hair. They're clear, frosted like glass, not too large to cause trouble but not at all a meek rack.

And as if Woojin wasn't already struggling to comprehend everything he's seen, he's got a tail too.  _ A fucking tail. _ It's snow white, smooth, almost like a whip as it ends in a plume of white fur. 

“What the hell are you?” Hyunjin hits Woojin on the back of hisohead.

“What type of question is  _ that? _ Don't be rude.”

“Don't be rude-! Are you t-telling me that it's regular to see dudes with antlers and tails?”

“No! But it's pretty clear what he is!”

“Uh,” The demon butts in, waving his hands in front of him apologetically. “It's a pretty valid question, no worries. I can kinda ask the same, what is a couple of…” He trails off, tilting his head at Hyunjin and Woojin. “...Humans doing here?... Doing down there too, of all places!”

“I'm just as confused,” Woojin shivers as the oppressive cold settles over him again. He's not surprised the demon seems fine, but the fact that Hyunjin has yet to start shivering strikes him as yet again odd. “Could we go  _ sss _ omewhere not so fucking c-cold first?”

“Oh shit, right, you guys are freezing!” The demon quickly unzips his long coat, getting up from sitting to pull it around them. Woojin feels like it was just for him, but since the coat is just  _ that _ big, Hyunjin gets swallowed up in it as well. “Let's get you home before you freeze, huh?” The demon reaches around Woojin, eventually getting under his legs and lifting him up easily.

It's at this time that Woojin notices another off thing about the demon, and that he's just  _ large. _ He's tall, sure, but Woojin realizes how his hands are much larger than his own, built a bit bulkier and having a larger frame. Either Woojin's being carried bridal-style by the beefiest demon he's ever seen, or demons are just larger than humans.

Woojin really hopes it's the latter. His head is resting in the crook of the demon's elbow, and he's starting to get nervous feeling like his head's in a nutcracker right now.

“I could probably carry you as well,” The demon offers to Hyunjin, Woojin able to see over his shoulder Hyunjin shaking his head.

“I'm perfectly fine,” Hyunjin says, trying to stand away from the demon but keep his eyes on Woojin. The demon tilts his head.

“You sure? It's pretty rough going up, and cold-”

“I'm fine.” Hyunjin says with an affirmative tone, the demon still frowning. His tail flicks around as he thinks, before pointing it Hyunjin's way.

“At least hold onto my tail, yeah? Or else I’m going to get scared that I lost ya,” The demon chuckles nervously, until Hyunjin finally grabs onto the plumed tip.

They then go for all of three seconds until Hyunjin acts out again.

“What the hell are you doing?” He asks, almost accusingly so as the demon lifts his hands up to the walls of the sinkhole with an old silvery air about them, almost like a glitter or dust that surrounds them.

“Oh,” The demon looks at his hand, flicking it around. “It's just some magic, no worries! You've probably never seen it, but,” The demon places his hand against the wall of the sinkhole, and the great crystals start to poke out again. Woojin sees they're not as sporadic this time, the rats nest he once saw above him slowly turning into a spiral staircase. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“As long as it doesn't kill us,” Hyunjin mumbles, before falling silent for the rest of the trek upwards. It's a quite a long, awkward silence actually. The sinkhole is somehow deeper than Woojin first thought, and considering how the demon is going slow as to not lose him or Woojin, it takes even longer.

Seeing how much longer they have to go, Woojin just closes his eyes and waits for sleep. With how tense he's been the last few hours though, it immediately falls over him the moment he shuts his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> like i said. no set update schedule im sorry KDKJFKJ  
> this was a very odd area in my planning of the story though so, heres to hoping the future updates go Quick
> 
> send me not very anon hate on twitter  
> @whimsycottao3 (just fics)  
> @sneedledeedle (main, shitpost account)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! kudos are loved, and drop a comment if you so wish! 
> 
> twitter  
> @whimsycottao3 (just for fics)  
> @sneedledeedle (main account, much more active)  
> drop a dm! i dont bite and i love more mutuals!


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